By Derrick Brown (follow on Twitter @dbrowndbrown)
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There’s No Place Like (Home)Coming (874 Words)
By Derrick Brown (Join Our Mailing List!)
Fridays carry a peculiar gravity.
They arrive heavy with the week’s residue ... fatigue, fragments of progress,
unfinished hope.
And this Friday, Homecoming Friday, carried the additional weight of costumes,
chaos, and celebration.
On what should be a day buzzing with energy … my 1A was catatonic.
Even I woke up sleepy.
I tried to pick up where yesterday left off ... triangle congruence theorems,
logic, precision.
But … five minutes in … the current was moving in another direction.
MG squinted at the board, trying to locate the hypotenuse on a right triangle.
JW called it out for her.
Then JW asked if there was a review for this ... while staring at the new
material I had been teaching for 5 minutes.
That question was not a question.
It was what I call a cap cop … a soft-spoken attempt to avoid
self-responsibility.
I felt the room sliding.
The lesson was not landing … because it was still “grounded”.
The spirit was “present” … but it was a spirit of “not today”.
So I sat down.
Sometimes the most merciful act is withdrawal.
I distributed their guided notes, leaned back, and watched the room rearrange
itself into tribes ... those who slept … those who doodled … and the precious
few who “worked on the work.”
TW, PC1, and PC2 traced lines, labeled sides, and carried the quiet dignity of
people who still cared to learn.
I stayed at my desk on purpose, a stationary border … if you want help,
come closer … if not, stay there.
Boundaries as pedagogy.
Then I “peeped” AF … phone in hand … thumbs dancing.
I asked her to put it away.
She did ... for a while.
When I returned from greeting Coach TM in the hall, she was back on it.
I repeated the request, this time with what I call a “courtesy warning tone.”
Usually that tone earns contrition … “my bad, coach.”
Today it met resistance ... consternation, indignation, and defiance.
“Para,” I said, my best high-school-Spanish attempt to say stop.
“Siéntate,” I added.
She smirked and corrected me: “I’m already sitting.”
I sighed.
“I can see that. I meant stand down.”
Her silence said everything.
I wrote the referral.
It was the first one I have written for that class all year.
It did not feel triumphant … it felt necessary.
Boundaries again ... this time disciplinary instead of emotional.
My “Firm Friday Harshness” was not anger … it was architecture.
Walls keep sanctuaries standing.
Homecoming should feel like belonging.
Banners hang from the ceiling … students wear colors like armor … teachers wear
smiles like costumes.
But for me, these spaces feel foreign.
The same hallways that echo cheers for the football team … also hold the sighs
of the teachers who will clean up the emotional debris on Monday.
I have learned to skip pep rallies and faculty meetings … and conserve energy
for the work that still matters ... relationships, reflections, and the fragile
art of staying sane.
I teach in a place that calls itself “home,” … but not all homes are hospitable … this one is broken.
Some are places you keep returning to … until you finally understand that you
must leave.
That is where I am ... my “last days.”
And yet, something in me refuses to detach completely.
Every act of teaching … every small confrontation … every quiet success … feels
like a rehearsal for my own exit interview with the universe … What did you
learn from the place that could not love you back?
Today’s answer came through fatigue.
The geometry lesson failed, but the geometry of grace still worked.
Boundaries were drawn … angles measured … and I could still recognize the shape
of my calling ... even if the figure itself had changed.
The hypotenuse I had asked MG to find earlier reappeared as metaphor … the
longest side connecting endurance and purpose.
The right triangle of my life still holds its form ... adjacent, opposite,
faithful.
When the final bell rang and students rushed off to the parade … I lingered.
The hall buzzed with performative joy ... band uniforms … face paint … the
clatter of expectation.
Across the courtyard, banners fluttered with the slogan No Place Like Home(Coming).
I wanted to believe it.
I really did.
But belief, like equilibrium, requires opposing forces.
“I believe” must balance “help my unbelief.”
In this building … peace has always been a steady-state phenomenon … not the
absence of friction and tension … but the careful counterweighting of it.
I have learned to survive by standing still … by letting noise flow around me
like wind around a fixed point.
I have learned that teaching is sometimes not instruction but intercession ...
praying silently that a few will choose to stay awake … to learn … to live
differently.
So yes, today was not for the highlight reels.
But it was real.
And real is enough.
The math lesson failed, but the human one remained …
Boundaries define space, and grace keeps it livable.
Homecoming does not always mean you belong … sometimes it means you have
finally learned that you do not.
And still I rise.
Selah.
(The "Follow The Leader (changED - Volume 2)" Audio and Video Album / Mixtape is also available at TeachersPayTeachers.com)
(The "changED (Volume 1)" Audio and Video Album / Mixtape is also available at TeachersPayTeachers.com)
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I am a “standup storyteller.”
I fuse rap, spoken word (poetry), oration (traditional public speaking), singing, and teaching into messages of hope, healing, and change that I write, direct, and produce to help people who help people.
Everything must change - and stay changED.
Tradition begins and ends with change.
Change begins with me and the renewing of my mind ... then continues through efforts to effect small-group discipleship (equipping others to equip others) with audiences that respect and embrace mentoring, mediation, and problem solving as tools of change.
I am the product of my mentoring relationships, peacemaking (and peacekeeping), and problem-solving ability.
My education began when I finished school.
After school, I enrolled in a lifelong curriculum that includes classes in ministry, entrepreneurship, stewardship, literacy, numeracy, language, self-identity, self-expression, and analysis / synthesis.
My projects execute a ministry that has evolved from wisdom earned through lessons learned.
I want to share this wisdom to build teams of "triple threat" fellows - mentors, mediators, and problem solvers.
We will collaborate in simple, powerful ways that allow us to help people who help people.
I now know that power is work done efficiently (with wise and skillful use of resources, interests, communication, and expertise).
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